Meet Regina Mwanza, an amazing woman. I will tell about her and her quest in a coming letter. There are many reasons we came on this mission and she is one of them.
The next picture is of Simon Hester, master BBQ chef in the freezing wind at the beach. We were all chilled to the bone but had a good time anyway. When the tide comes in this beach is all under water.
The other pictures are of a park in the city, Williamson Park and the Ashton Memorial. Lord Ashton made this as a tribute to his adored wife. There are parks and scenes like this all over England. Lord Ashton inherited his fortune from his father who was the linoleum king in Britain.

Here are some pictures of the farmhouse we will be moving to tomorrow near Barrow in Furness. It is the middle cottage. The owner lives in the far cottage and someone else is in the house where the trash cans are. The whole thing has been redone so that it is very quaint but modern plumbing and electrical heating, etc. The living room is upstairs on the second floor. The big window looks out toward the Sea, behind where Larry is standing and we can see across Morecambe Bay to where we just moved from. The back window looks over the beautiful fields to a distant pig farm. Yum... When we move in we'll put up a few more pictures. Natalie and Jason come with the kids next weekend from Germany so we are thrilled we'll have room for them. Jason is coming to see us to say goodbye before he is shipped back to Iraq for a year. Natalie will be coming to stay for several weeks at a time, which will be fun while he is gone. She was a missionary in Barrow so she will be our secret weapon in doing missionary work there.

Family Search Fair and Sunderland

This week we helped out at a Family Search Fair at our building. The exhibit was from London and included eight computer terminals, two printers and two large TV monitors for viewing from behind the participants. The graphics were wonderful. A Senior Missionary couple takes the exhibit to each Stake. The Stake provides hosts and experts. The public is invited to come and work on their family histories. We had several hundred people come through during the three days that they were there. Larry helped as an expert (which he is not) whenever they were short handed and Barbara was a hostess. Our feeling was that it was a marvelous tool for introducing the public to our church.


We also took another trip with madman driver Bro. Holden to Sambo's grave. It lies in Sunderland, a small village near the mouth of the River Lune. Sambo was a slave boy who died shortly after arriving in England. His grave is a tribute to the fifty or so other slaves buried in the area in unmarked graves. There is a wonderful tribute written that lies upon the grave. Many school children visit and leave toys and mementos at the site, which is otherwise just a barren field near Morecambe Bay. To get to Sunderland, you travel on a road that is under water during high tides. If you are not careful, you could find yourself floating down the Lune River into the sea. On either side of the road are areas of quicksand and other dangers. It was not a trip for the faint of heart. Houses in the village have large slots on either side of their doors where wooden boards can slip in to hold back the high tides during the winter. The place is very isolated during high tides. During the time when it was a port, many men were hijacked from the local pubs to serve as sailors on the cargo ships. Some of the pubs are still active today. Thank goodness the sailing ships are gone. We made it out alive!
We will move this week to Barrow in Furness, which is across the Bay from Heysham about fourteen miles away. Since you must travel all the way around the bay, it takes one and a half hours to get there. We will dearly miss Lancaster Ward. They have been wonderful to us.

These are some candid shots of our group at District meeting in Blackpool. Barbara is speaking with one of our zone leaders, Elder Hvistendahl. He is the first and only elder to leave from the nation of Greenland. That is pretty cool. :)
The second picture is of the future general authorities for our church although the third picture shows they are not quite ready for prime time.
The last picture is the group, never to be united again as transfers are sure to change them this week. From left: Elder Fielding, Elder Cullen (Zone Leader), Elder Fisher, Elder Johnson (District Leader), Elder Colton, Elder Hvistendahl (Zone Leader), Elder Weber, and Elder Morin. These fine young men have been a great example to us, I don't think they realize how much we learn from them. We wish them well as they go to different areas of the Mission and we look forward to seeing them again.

Friends in the ward took us for a back lane trip to the Dales, a national park near Lancaster. Dales means small valleys and there are villages sprinkled throughout the park area. What a feast for the eyes to see miles of rolling hills and valleys filled with animals and quaint, very old villages. It is a popular pastime to hike in the Dales and people come from all over the world to enjoy this area. The church and village green are in Langcliffe, the village in the center of the first picture. In Settle you see the Olde Naked Man Cafe with the man on the wall above and to the left of the door with the people waiting. It has been there for centuries. There is a Naked Lady on a wall in Langcliffe. They have been a pair since the 1500's. It was a wonderful day.

Interview Day

Our district decided to do a day at the temple. We took the four elders to lunch with us afterwards. They are from left: Elders Colton, Johnson, Fisher, and Fielding. The other pictures of elders were from our interview day where we are interviewed by Pres. Jacobsen and taught by the Assistants. It is so good to be together for these spiritual feasts. We like to post the pictures of these great Elders so their families may see them and know that they are well. The last picture is one of the beautiful sunsets we get often looking over Morecambe Bay from Heysham toward Barrow in Furness. We will move to Barrow at the end of this month then we will be looking from Barrow toward Heysham. Many of the elders will change also since transfers will happen next week. We will miss them, but we will stay close through the Mission grapevine and e-mails.

These are pictures from the ward walk in the lake district (Ullswater Lake). It was well attended as you can see and loads of fun. Is missionary work supposed to be this much fun? The walk was for 7 miles beside a beautiful lake. We experienced sun, hail, cold, rain and everything in between but it was so lovely and fun that no one noticed. Why don't we have this scenery in Simi Valley?

Some photos of Heysham

These are some pictures from around Heysham where we live. The church is ancient and sits close to the sea. The stone graves were from possibly Viking graves. The cross was in the church grave yard. The stone fence is characteristic of the walls in the area.